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The 50 Best Sights in Astronomy

Amateur astronomers love best-sights lists. For instance, although it wasn't compiled for that purpose, the Messier Catalog is a fair approximation of the best 109 (or 110) deep-sky objects visible from mid-northern latitudes. Many other best-sights lists have been published, notably the Astronomical League's Observing "Clubs". But all of these lists are fairly specialized: best double stars, best lunar sights, and so on.

Magnificent Orion is responsible for four of Schaaf's 50 best astronomical sights.

Courtesy Akira Fujii.

In the recently published book The 50 Best Sights in Astronomy, S&T contributing editor Fred Schaaf takes a new approach to this old subject. Schaaf emphasizes the essential unity of astronomy by listing the 50 best astronomical sights of any kind. He organizes them by what instrument you need to see them, starting with the numerous (though often overlooked) naked-eye splendors, and concluding with objects that are only visible through telescopes at high magnifications.

Schaaf's 50 best are listed below, but you will have to read his book to appreciate the insights that make his list so valuable. Please let us know below what you think of his list, his book, and this whole method of organizing astronomical splendors.

Well, I actually have done all of these, and I don’t really consider myself a particularly active observer. I suppose it’s actually not so surprising. I’ve had an S&T subscription for 45 years, and am charter subscriber to Astronomy and the Planetary Report, been on 6 total eclipse expeditions (and saw 2), own a Unitron 2.4″ refractor (since 1956), and a Celestron 8 (since 1972), plus 7×50 & 20×80 binocs and a Coronado Maxscope 40 solar telescope. For me the most awe inspiring were the two instances of totality (Mexico 1970 and the Aegean 2004) and the most unique was the transit of Venus with the Maxscope. Next in line would be aurorae in Maine at solar max in IGY 1957-58, and the Leonid meteor shower peak earlier in this century.

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